Straight Talk PR .com

More Crummy Ethics When $$ Involved

Thanks to Daily 'Dog relaying word from the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, we see another case of crummy ethics. The hits -- hits to the public relations profession -- just keep on coming.

The political news show Fox News Sunday paid $14,000 to former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, for an interview four days after his indictment for alleged violations of Texas campaign finance law.

Good gracious, Fox. Do we need to review simple rules of media relations ethics? Try these:

• No self-respecting journalist should ever pay someone for an interview. I know it happens occasionally, and I have here some of the Barbara Walters interviews in mind. As for Fox, the $14K payment only reinforces the common belief that Fox is the right-wing cable news network.
• It's OK for media -- especially media fixed in one location such as a talk show wedded to its set -- to pay expenses for people to come to a studio for an interview. But paying for private jets ought to be very rare. And whatever happened to live remotes? Most local TV stations use them often.
• There are rare cases -- primarily in trade journals and among travel writers -- in which the product (resort, car rollout, new products) will pay for small but significant trade journals and newsletters to cover the launch of a product. I don't particularly like this practice, but as long as it is very limited to that segment -- and the payment is disclosed by the writer -- I can look the other way.

To sum up: Money paid by media to interviewees? No. Money paid for usual and customary travel expenses? OK, but better the media go to the interviewee. Money paid to journalists for interviews or travel to trade shows and product launches? Not good in vast number of cases, sometimes overlooked in cases of smaller newsletter or trade publications in which the travel budget can barely fund one trip. Should be disclosed.

UPDATE: Jan. 31, 2:37 p.m.
With ethics showing up so much in the recent news, I just added an "Ethics" category to this blog. I wonder how I got along without it for so long.

Technorati Tags: money payment pay interview media "Tom DeLay"

P.R. Ethics Gone Crazy

Six AM, the blog of Richard Edelman of Edeman Public Relations points out a dangerous trend in p.r. -- linking public relations to shadowy payments for community relations as well as payoffs to local reporters.

Was I naive enough to think this stuff doesn't happen in America?

Sayeth Edelman in a January 20, 2006, post:

Another wonderful morning reading about the sleazy behavior of a so-called PR firm paying off a journalist to write favorably about a client. The stories in USA Today and the NY Times describe a pay-for-play arrangement organized by PR firm The Lewis Group with journalist Audry Lewis, a freelance journalist who received $10,000 for articles contributed to the Birmingham Times about former HealthSouth Richard Scrushy, on trial for defrauding investors. The Associated Press also reports that the Lewis Group paid a local pastor, Rev. Herman Henderson, to "help bring fellow black preachers into the courtroom in a bid to sway the mostly black jury in Scrushy's favor." A further complication--the PR firm is headed by Jesse Lewis Sr., founder of the Birmingham Times newspaper, whose editor is his son, James Lewis. To top it off, Charles Russell, described by the NY Times as a "prominent Denver based crisis communications consultant" working with Mr. Scrushy, also provided compensation ($2,500) to the journalist, for what Russell said was "freelance community relations work."

This sleazy arrangement was somewhat comically described by the editor, James Lewis, in the New York Times. He claims not to have known that the reporter was being paid, considering her a "community contributor" who was a classic citizen journalist. "Had I known the young lady was being paid by somebody, I'd have called Richard Scrushy and told him he could have bought an ad for a lot less money."

Isn't that exactly the point? Our business is being dragged down by an erosion of the hard and fast line between advertising and public relations. We don't buy space and we don't pay off journalists. We don't engage in murky relationships that are positioned with such code words as "doing community relations work."

Hat tip to Daily 'Dog for pointing the way to this commentary.

Technorati Tags: Edelman ethics "public relations" payoffs